


mirror matter

by Septemberrie



Category: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018), The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Oh my god so much Fluff, Pregnancy, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 18:27:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15846897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Septemberrie/pseuds/Septemberrie
Summary: I just can’t stop writing about this family (sometimes a family is a group of people living on an island during and after a WWII Occupation). Dawsey receives news that forever shifts his life's trajectory.I wrote the first part a while ago, and then decided Dawsey needed a bit of a happy ending.





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There’s only one person who raps on his front door with such vigor so late at night, unaccompanied by the clamor of German shouting, so Dawsey braces himself, hand on the knob, for Elizabeth McKenna to storm into his foyer with her next risky scheme to secure them more food, or supplies, or books. So when she simply stands in the doorway instead, with her pink lips drawn into a tight line, and her shoulders hunched over her abdomen, Dawsey knows something is horribly wrong.

“Elizabeth? What is it?” He takes a quick step forward, one hand on her shoulder to peer into the darkness behind her, looking for a German or spy that would aggrieve her this late at night.

Wordless, she slips past him into his house, with sudden speed that leaves Dawsey staring after her, aghast. He scans his yard once more, but no motion greets his eyes. Whatever spooked Elizabeth must be in her head, not in her footsteps.

He shuts the door and locks it carefully before turning to follow Elizabeth into his kitchen. There’s only one tallow candle to light the room, and she looks further drawn by the shadows that play across her face. “Dawsey,” she says at last, and he feels a slight twinge of unexplainable relief - at what, he’s not sure. That she still has a voice? That she needs something from him? That he can help her?

“Yes?” he prompts. He wants to unfold her arms from her chest, loosen whatever has wound her so tightly, return to him the resolutely cheerful Elizabeth that he hasn’t seen since Christian’s deportation. Whatever he wants, it’s not the next words that tumble from her mouth like an unstoppable riptide.

She clings to her elbows with her hands. “I’m pregnant, and you’re the father.”

The news is so jarring that it takes several seconds to slide into place in Dawsey’s head. “…what? Elizabeth–”

She cocks her chin away from him, lips parting, quivering (or was that just the candlelight?), before she draws a deep breath and speaks again. “I know it’s hard, but it’s the only way I can think of to keep all of us safe.”

Dawsey’s still a few steps behind, and sinks down onto one of the two remaining chairs at his kitchen table. His head falls forward into his hands, propped up by his elbows. “It’s–it’s Christian’s?”

“ _Yes_ , Dawsey,” and he can’t help but flinch at the irritation in her voice. 

He draws his head upward to stare at Elizabeth over his fingers. “Christ above.”

She stares back at him, steely-eyed and impassive, but Dawsey can see through it. Her shortness of breath gives it away; he can see her collarbones rise and fall sharply beneath her threadbare dress. She’s upright, but only just, braced so tightly against herself that the smallest wind could knock her over.

He may be rocked by her news, but he knows from looking at her that it’s nothing compared to the hurricane inside her. Ignoring the looming panic that’s beginning to cloud his mind, he stands up, kicks the chair out behind him, and opens his arms.

She collapses at once, a rogue wave crashing onto the shore of his chest, and he holds her while she convulses in silent sobs.

He doesn’t know how long they stay there, with Elizabeth shaking in his arms, but he stays, fixed, while the candle burns dangerously close to its wick, and his feet feel numb from holding her weight and his. He doesn’t have anything else to give.

Finally, she wrenches herself away and faces the wall.

“I just wish he was here.”

Her voice doesn’t shake, she doesn’t even sniffle. He watches, silently, while she slowly turns on one foot, dress hem waving gently against her ankles, and looks up at him. “But he’s gone. So I’ll tell them you’re the father.” She blinks, her dark brown eyes a swirl of fury, of anguish, of fear. “Please, Dawsey. Then they won’t have a claim to her.”

He exhales slowly, letting her words wash over him, sink into him, ground him. He closes his eyes briefly, and then opens them to watch her. “ _Her?_ ”

She casts her hands to her sides in a gesture of bewilderment. “Maybe it’s a ‘he,’ I don’t know. I don’t know much of anything right now.” Then her hands creep up to rest on her abdomen. “Just that, I need you. Will you, Dawsey?”

As if he’d ever say no to Elizabeth McKenna. Or to Christian, his comrade, his friend. He reaches forward to hold her hand. It’s cold, like it always is in the winter, and he cups it with both of his.

“Of course I will.”

She steps forward again, slowly this time, and presses herself against his chest. He lifts his chin to cradle the top of her head into the hollow of his neck.

“Thank you, Dawsey.”

* * *

Five years later.

Dawsey slices his garden hoe into the dirt, drags it back to form a six-inch hollow, and bends down to drop a few seeds into the newly-tilled earth. Aubergine. A vegetable he’d only read about in books before Juliet had brought some from the mainland. He still doubted it would take root here, but it was worth the extra effort to see Juliet’s face light up in amusement and delight when he’d tried to peel and cook it like a potato. Old habits.

The sky is overcast, but not dim; the thin cloud cover is the type that refracts the sunlight in all directions rather than blocks it. Dawsey has to squint in the indirect light to look past the garden gate at the figure coming up the walk.

“Morning,” Juliet says and leans against the gate. She’s wearing the yellow sundress with the flowers on it, the ones whose name he can never recall. Rhodo-somethings. Beautiful as always. He can’t stop looking. He won’t.

“Morning,” he greets in return, leaning against his hoe. “I didn’t want to rouse you. You looked so peaceful when I woke.”

“I needed the rest,” Juliet yawns in agreement, covering her mouth for a half-second before resting her elbows on the gate, chin cupped in one hand. “But I think my stomach is settled now.”

He grins and approaches the gate to pepper her cheek with the morning kiss she’d missed during her slumber. She laughs and turns her head away from his scruff, but he reaches out to hold her shoulders close to him, kissing down her neck while she giggles madly. “My plum.”

She playfully bats him away. “You know how I loathe that nickname. Makes me feel all bulbous. And torpid.” 

Dawsey grins and reaches up to kiss Juliet’s forehead. “Fine, then, my angular and vivacious love.”

She grabs the front of his coveralls to pull his head down to her level for another kiss. He obliges, then pulls back to rest his forehead against hers. “What would you do if I actually was like that?” she asks. 

She stares up at him with such earnest seriousness that he has to fight off the urge to laugh at her sudden shift to sincerity. “Why, I’d put you in my wheelbarrow and cart you around the island,” he replies sardonically.

“Well, I’m going to be,” she says, her eyes still wide and focused, not laughing.

Dawsey isn’t sure how long her game is planning to last, so rather than find out too late at his own expense, he pushes off from the gate, shaking his head and grinning. “I did tell you you’d regret having another slice of Amelia’s toffee pudding.” He hefts the shaft of the hoe in his hand and lowers it to dig another hole for seeds.

Juliet’s hands clench around the fence gate and she cocks her head in the manner reserved for moments that Dawsey says something too Island-ish, too ignorant of the mainland and the world that passed Guernsey by during the Occupation, a world they’re still scrambling to catch up with two years later. 

“Well, if you must be so bullheaded about it - it’s because I’m eating for two.”

Dawsey stops and slowly turns his head. It takes several moments for the full weight of her announcement settles onto his mind like a lock clicking into place.

“For… two?”

She nods immediately, at first exasperated and then her laugh bursts forth, eager and joyful.

He laughs then, too, a strange guffaw that’s most unlike him, a noise of shock and amazement and pure, unadulterated happiness. The garden hoe drops to the ground and he claps his hands to his head in amazement, knocking the Brixton hat from his head.

“Juliet!” The word rings out and it’s the only thing he can say to communicate the surprise and elation erupting out of him. He crosses the garden in two strides and flings the gate open to gather Juliet up in his arms. He can’t stop staring at her, as if in a new light, her joy shining not just from her smiling mouth but from her lustrous eyes, her glowing skin, her wild and unbrushed hair.

And then suddenly there’s an unwelcome wetness in her eyes and she hiccups in his arms. His eyebrows knit as he stares down at her, one hand threading through her hair. “Juliet, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I swear it,” she insists, though her voice is a rasp that’s desperately trying not to betray emotion. She wipes her eye with one hand and sniffs to look up at him. “I’m sorry, I’m being silly, I don’t know why I’m tearing up. I’m happy, and I’m so happy that you’re happy, I just–” she swallows with difficulty and leans forward to embrace him.

He folds his arms protectively around her back, pressing her close. “I’ve just never done this before,” she muffles into his shirt. “I suppose I’m a bit frightened.”

Dawsey lowers his mouth to the top of her head to kiss it and shush her gently. He doesn’t know what to say - what could any man say that would ease her mind? - so he simply holds her.

After a few moments Juliet shudders a sigh and looks up, her chin resting on Dawsey’s chest. “And you’ll cart me around in the wheelbarrow when I’m so swollen I can’t walk?”

He smiles. “Definitely. When you’re bulbous, and torpid.”

She giggles, a bubble of relief and playfulness that lessens the anxiety in his gut. “And you’ll love Kit and me and the baby all equally?”

He reaches up to stroke her cheek. “Of course I will.”

She breathes deeply again and returns her head to the crook of his neck.

“Thank you, Dawsey.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment if you enjoyed! Or even if you hated it. Thank you.


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